The Brief

Picking the next insurance commissioner could be one of the most important decisions Californians make for their wallets this election year.

They may have seen a big increase in their insurance premiums in the past couple of years. They might know someone whose homeowners policy got canceled. Or perhaps they’re trying to rebuild after last year’s deadly Los Angeles County fires.

If you’re not sure what the insurance commissioner does, here’s a rundown:

• Regulates the nation’s largest property and casualty insurance market, which includes policies for homeowners, businesses, landlords, renters and drivers. 
• Leads the Insurance Department, which reviews and approves premium rate increases. 
• Regulates life, health and workers’ compensation insurance. 

Whoever is elected to succeed Commissioner Ricardo Lara will have a long to-do list. For the past few years, insurance companies have paused writing homeowner policies or reduced their presence in California. That’s starting to change because of industry-friendly regulations Lara put in place, but premiums are still rising and the market cannot be described as healthy yet.

The L.A.-area fires last year highlighted other problems, such as homeowners dealing with insurers delaying or denying claims, discovering they were underinsured, or finding out there are no standards for smoke-damage claims. Frustrated fire survivors called for Lara to step down.

In a recent poll commissioned by the Insurance Fairness Project, a national insurance information hub, 62% of likely voters said they are very concerned about the cost of home insurance and 43% said they are not confident at all that California’s insurance system can withstand future extreme weather disasters.

Former insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who held the position two separate times and is now a U.S. congressmember, calls the commissioner job the second-hardest in the state behind the governor. Another former commissioner, Dave Jones, said the next commissioner needs to keep a closer eye on insurance companies and regularly examine their conduct, creating “clear enforcement triggers.” He worked on a blueprint with recommendations galore for Lara’s successor.

About a dozen candidates are officially vying for the position, though not all of them have active campaigns. The two who receive the most votes in June’s primary will move on to the November ballot.

CalMatters interviewed the five candidates who have raised the most money for their campaigns.

All of them are calling for more transparency and accountability from insurance companies within the law that governs insurance in the state, Proposition 103. They want to help reduce fire risk at the individual and community level. Most of them agree California should try to hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable for climate risks that are helping drive up insurance costs.

They want to reduce Californians’ dependence on the FAIR Plan, the insurer that’s mandated to sell fire insurance to those who can’t buy it from individual insurance companies. At the end of 2025, the plan had nearly 650,000 noncommercial dwelling policies, up from about 264,000 in 2022.

Here is how each candidate, in alphabetical order, plans to tackle the challenges.

Ben Allen

State Sen. Ben Allen.

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Photo via the California State Senate

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Last year’s massive fires in the L.A. area hit the senator’s district. Along with other insurance-related bills, Allen has introduced legislation that would give the commissioner more power to hold insurance companies accountable. After hearing from his constituents about the department’s handling of their problems after the fires, he wants to boost the number of staff handling consumer complaints and create a consumer advocate position in the insurance department, he told CalMatters.

Allen, a Democrat, would take a more comprehensive approach to risk reduction, including by creating funding sources such as state-backed loans for hardening homes, and by bringing together insurers, builders, local governments, firefighters and the state to work on solutions. As part of reducing risk, he wants to restrict new construction in high-risk zones, saying developers who are building in such areas are “basically freeloading off the rest of us.” He also wants to “carefully and sensitively” find a way to incentivize those already living in risky areas to move elsewhere.

The senator — a lawyer who will be termed out of the Legislature, where he has worked on environmental issues — said his eyes are wide open about how tough the job would be, but believes he has and can create the relationships needed, including with an incoming governor, to address the issues. On the role of intervenors, members of the public who can challenge insurers’ rate reviews, he indicated he needed to look into it further and that they shouldn’t be slowing down rate reviews — adopting a refrain by the current commissioner, who is seeking to reduce intervenors’ power.

He has received the most endorsements from the who’s-who of state politics, including Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, both U.S. senators from California, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, and more than two dozen state lawmakers. Jones, the former commissioner, also endorsed him.

Steven Bradford

Steven Bradford.

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Photo via the California State Senate Archive

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The former Southern California senator and assemblymember would establish a public-private partnership that would share risk with insurers to keep them in the state. What that would look like needs more exploration, Bradford told CalMatters.

The Democrat, a former executive at the utility company Southern California Edison, would invite insurance companies “to the table” when discussing land use and planning, and support a voluntary buyout program to encourage people to move away from high-risk areas.

He said funding could come from expanding an existing program in the insurance department called the California Organized Investment Network, which is backed by the insurance industry and invests in underserved communities, environmentally friendly and affordable housing projects, and more. Insurers’ investments in the program have grown from tens of millions of dollars to more than $1 billion in 2023, according to the commissioner’s annual report in 2024.

Bradford would push insurers for clear explanations when they raise rates, saying it won’t be easy but that because the state’s insurance market is so big, it “would behoove them to do what they can to be partners with California.”

He is endorsed by U.S. Reps. Adam Gray and Luz Rivas, state Treasurer Fiona Ma and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, plus Teamsters California, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and other labor groups.

Merritt Farren

Merritt Farren.

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Photo courtesy of Merritt Farren’s campaign

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The Pacific Palisades home of the former Amazon and Disney executive was destroyed in last year’s fires. He became an intervenor and pushed for more information on State Farm’s request to raise its rates as a result of the fires, which led to his campaign for commissioner.

Farren, a Republican, would create CAL Reinsure so the state could provide a backstop for insurers. The entity would be funded by a fee charged by insurers and would eliminate the need for the FAIR Plan because companies would be more inclined to write policies, he told CalMatters. The authority could issue bonds that could be sold in the commercial market, and would be backed by the state, like municipal bonds.

He would want to “revamp” regulations that get in the way of allowing new insurance products in the market, saying that he wishes insurers had a premium product that charged customers more but would “pay out immediately on loss without putting them through the drama and trauma they have to go through today.”

Farren said he sees the commissioner’s job as one of consumer advocacy, and invoked his days at Amazon, where he says the motto was to be the most customer-centric company in the world. “You can be a consumer advocate and still appreciate the fact that there will be no insurance for consumers without insurance companies,” he said.

Jane Kim

Jane Kim.

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Photo via Jane Kim’s campaign

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The lawyer, consumer advocate and former San Francisco supervisor told CalMatters that the commissioner’s office has been “under-leveraged” and has the levers to protect people from the powerful insurance industry.

Kim, a Democrat and head of the California Working Families Party, has three main proposals around more government involvement, the main one to create “natural disaster insurance for all.” It would be funded by a portion of policyholder premiums that insurance companies would pass along to the state. The state would manage the fund, which would guarantee fire and flood coverage. Insurance companies would continue to provide coverage for other risks. It’s not her idea — New Zealand has the same system, and it allows the country to invest the premiums in preventive measures, she said. Establishing such a system in California could allow the state to invest profit from premiums that would have gone to insurers’ shareholders in its communities instead, she said.

She would establish a public option for auto insurance by expanding eligibility for an existing program that provides low-cost insurance to drivers who make less than $38,000 a year.

Kim also wants to provide Medicare for kids. She believes California should centralize all insurance authority within the insurance department instead of having managed health care handled by the Managed Health Care Department.

She acknowledges that her biggest ideas are for the long term and will require her to win over naysayers.

“I’ve heard it — ‘She doesn’t know anything,’ ” Kim said. “We’re all so tired of seeing candidates that don’t have political courage.”

Kim is endorsed by some big names, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — she was California political director for his presidential campaign in 2020 — Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressmember, and unions such as SEIU California, the California Teachers Association and the UFCW Western States Council.

Patrick Wolff

Patrick Wolff.

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Photo via the Patrick Wolff campaign website

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The financial analyst, a Democrat who lives in San Francisco and has never held public office, obtained an insurance license ahead of his run for commissioner. Wolff told CalMatters that he has invested his own money in his campaign — $600,000, according to campaign finance records — and simply wants to help fix the problems he sees in the insurance market. “It would be the honor of my lifetime if I can do this job and really do this job well,” he said.

Wolff would create a report card that would grade how insurers handle claims based on existing market conduct annual surveys of insurance companies, which is now anonymized but which he would push to be identifiable. He said that would let the insurance department help customers decide which insurers to reward or punish for their behavior.

He would consider allowing auto insurers to use telematics, which companies use in other states to track driver behavior for underwriting purposes. He said it could help for more accurate underwriting and possibly even lower auto insurance premiums, but acknowledged privacy concerns around the technology and said insurance companies should be prohibited from sharing or selling driver information.

Wolff would roll out a dashboard that would disclose complaints about providers of life insurance. The insurance department is not making that data public, and he doesn’t see why not, he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

A refrigerated warehouse operated by Lineage Logistics has burned in Boyle Heights for nearly a week. Public health officials are urging residents nearby and downwind to protect themselves from the smoky air.

But what exactly is in the air is still unclear.

Authorities say they’ve cleared the most hazardous materials — ammonia and lithium-ion batteries — from the fire zone. A spokesperson for the L.A. Fire Department said foam insulation, wood pallets of food, and solar panels on top of the 500,000 square-foot building continue to smolder.

Materials including plastics, electronics and even rotting meat are likely burning, which means the pollution particles emitted “tend to be highly enriched with toxic organics, toxic metals, that are above and beyond what just normal, day-to-day air pollution would look like,” said UCLA air pollution researcher Yifang Zhu.

She said air quality indexes may capture the concentration of particulate matter in the air, but not necessarily the specific toxins in them.

“You'll have almost like a double jeopardy in a sense that the levels [of particulate matter] are higher, and the toxicity is also higher,” she said.

Measuring heavy metals or volatile organic compounds requires special monitoring equipment, Zhu said.

“It’s very difficult to measure,” she said.

But she suspects at least some types of health-harming heavy metals are likely to be in the smoke.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado on Monday called for more specifics about what is in the smoke.

People “shouldn't have to guess about what they're breathing or rely on rumors, scattered information and updates, and incomplete information,” she said at a news conference. Jurado, whose council district includes Boyle Heights, added that data from regulators, such as the South Coast Air Quality Management District, should be released in clear, understandable language in English and Spanish.

The South Coast AQMD told LAist before Jurado spoke that the agency has monitors that measure particulate matter, ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, but not other types of pollutants. The agency said it has set up additional monitors at Eastman Avenue Elementary and Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School. The agency added that the Environmental Protection Agency is also monitoring air quality at the fence line of the facility. LAist has reached out to the EPA for details.

Zhu added that even when the fire is eventually put out, the cleanup can kick up even more pollution — a lesson learned through her research after the L.A. fires.

“ I think people really need to take precautions,” Zhu said, emphasizing that those closest to the fire and downwind should avoid being outside as much as possible, keep windows closed, run a HEPA or MERV 13 air filter, and wear an N95 or similar mask otherwise.

UC Irvine toxicology professor Michael Kleinman said if thawed meat is also burning, that could lead to further toxic gases being released.

Experts urged precautions, especially if you smell smoke.

“ For people who are very close to the fire, like the firefighters themselves, they have exposure to both particulate matter and potential toxic gases, and that's why you'll see them wearing respirators,” said UC Irvine chemistry professor Suzanne Blum. “But once you're some feet away from the building, then the primary concern is the particulate smoke that is coming from this fire.”

As the Boyle Heights warehouse fire burns into its sixth day, SoCal residents are increasingly concerned about the air quality and potential health risks that come with breathing in the smoke. So, what alerts have been issued so far and how can residents be prepared?

Both Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass declared a state of emergency on Saturday, a designation that helps California coordinate with local agencies to make sure there are enough resources for the firefight and residents who have been affected after a fire started at a cold storage industrial facility. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis said at a press conference Monday that  the county is "delivering supplies, air filters, and air purifiers" to local households.

Los Angeles County public health officials and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) also issued a particle pollution advisory that remained in effect until today. Affected areas included: Central Los Angeles County, the San Gabriel Valley, East San Fernando Valley and Northwest San Bernardino Valley.

Although recent air quality readings appear as “moderate” to “good” on South Coast AQMD’s website, the fire is still burning and might be for a few more days.

So what can SoCal residents do to protect themselves?

If the air quality index reads “good” or “poses little to no risk” in some areas, hazardous ash can still be present. If you see ash on your car, or windowsills, you might want to stay inside if possible. In “moderate” or yellow zones, unusually sensitive people are also recommended to avoid longer periods outside.

In the next few days, some might notice windblown ash floating in the air or coating outdoor surfaces. These particles are otherwise known as “fine particulate matter,” which consists of soot, burned plastic and perhaps even traces of the spoiling frozen food from inside the warehouse.

Why that matters

Too much exposure from these materials may cause temporary irritation to the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. If you suffer from health issues that are exacerbated by poor air quality, like respiratory illnesses, you may be affected by these conditions even more.

Four expert tips to protect yourself and your family:

• If you smell smoke or see ash, try to remain indoors with the windows closed. If you can’t, consider stepping outside with an N-95 mask, and refrain from engaging in any rigorous physical activity. 
• In your homes, also avoid using whole house fans (air conditioning is okay), as they can bring in the polluted air from outdoors. 
• If you have an air purifier, this is the time to use it. 
• Avoid using fireplaces, candles and vacuums, as they can introduce toxins into the clean, indoor environment.

For more guidance on precautions following the fires, visit Los Angeles County’s public health website for more. South Coast AQMD’s website also has more healthy and safety tips.

Updated June 22, 2026 at 16:22 PM ET

Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi has broken the record for most World Cup scoring.

Messi made the record goal, his 17th, during the first half of Monday's game against Austria. It was a heated match. Austria attacked relentlessly, and Argentina relied on its defense and on goalkeeper Emiliano "Dibu" Martinez. And, near the end in stoppage time, Messi scored again, finishing off at 2-0.

The team captain started off the World Cup with a bang: in the opener against Algeria, Messi scored a hat trick: three goals. A rare feat in soccer. He has scored all five goals for Argentina this World Cup. With the win, Argentina advances to the knockout round.

Messi hails from the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, an area known for producing excellent players. He faced challenges at an early age: he had a hormonal growth deficiency, which was difficult to treat in his hometown, given the severe economic crisis facing Argentina in the late 1990s. By 2001, the Messi family had decided to accept an offer for him to join La Masia, FC Barcelona's youth academy, in Spain. Messi was 13 years old.

It was at Barca that he rose to fame and developed his unique style of walking the pitch, patiently waiting for the right opportunity to jump on the ball, dribble skillfully past his opponents, and score.

Argentina's Lionel Messi, now the all-time World Cup scoring leader, celebrates scoring his team's second goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 group match against Austria.

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Francois Nel

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Although a legend of Barca and European soccer, he often expressed a desire to play for the Argentine national team in a World Cup. He got his chance in his 20's, but it wasn't smooth: he was widely seen as a foreigner who had not paid his dues in the Argentine soccer system. His measured, calculating style of play was often misunderstood in South America, where players tended to have a quicker, more aggressive technique.

There were several World Cup attempts that were disappointing, and after the 2016 World Cup, he announced he would not be playing again. "It's over," he said outside the locker room, visibly shaken. "I tried so hard, it is unbelievable, but it hasn't worked. Me and this team are through."

The tides turned under the leadership of Argentine Coach Lionel Scaloni, and Messi led the team to a Copa America victory in 2021. Argentina won the World Cup the following year.

This is Messi's sixth World Cup and he's considered one of the best players in soccer history.

Messi also surpassed Brazilian superstar Marta, who had scored 17 goals at the Women's World Cup.

Copyright 2026 NPR

More than two dozen state historic parks are free through the end of the year in honor of Juneteenth — and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the free “special edition Historian Passport,” which typically costs $50, as a rebuke to President Donald Trump’s attempts to “rewrite the past,” according to a news release by the governor’s office.

Since his inauguration, Trump has ordered staff working at all National Park Service locations to remove any content that casts Americans in a negative light from parks, monuments and memorials.

“California doesn’t hide from hard truths and uncomfortable history — in fact, we embrace it and learn from it,” Newsom wrote.

Until July 6, Californians can download the state historic park pass for free and use it as many times as they want through the end of 2026. The pass gives free entry to state historic parks for up to four people.

The Historian Passport grants entry to more than 30 state historic parks, including parks like Olompali and Malakoff Diggins which, rather than just providing outdoor recreation, also have an educational emphasis on the state’s history.

Jack London State Historic Park in Napa Valley, California.

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Ablokhin

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Many of these parks tell the story of the state’s cultural or indigenous history, from missions and museums to temples and the site that sparked the California Gold Rush.

Newsom made a similar move to make state parks free for Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year, in response to Trump’s decision to eliminate the holiday from the list of fee-free days at national parks across the country, replacing it with his birthday on Flag Day.

How to get your free Historian Passport for up to four people

You must make an account with the state’s reservation site ReserveCalifornia.com to obtain a Historian Pass. Then, visit the site’s Advance Passes page and select “Special Edition Historian Passport” from the dropdown menu, which will show as costing $0. No payment information is required.

After checking out, you’ll receive an email with an attached PDF version of your Historian Passport.

The state recommends you print off this PDF to present at any California state historic park for free entry, although you may just be able to show the image on your phone too.

Bear in mind that cellphone service may be poor at many state historic parks, so it’s worth screenshotting the PDF to save it as an image on your phone in case you’re unable to search your email.

Looking for free entry to other state parks that aren’t included in the Historian Passport? Consider checking out a parks pass from your local library, which provides these passes as part of the California State Library Parks Pass program.

KQED’s Carly Severn contributed to this report.